


if the fish swam out of the ocean

by Alaceron



Series: This Story Sounds Fishy [2]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Mermaid, M/M, mermaid!Charles, settler!Erik
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-23
Updated: 2012-07-23
Packaged: 2017-11-10 13:44:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/466962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alaceron/pseuds/Alaceron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The further adventures of Erik the settler and Charles the mermaid.</p><p>Or, Charles grows legs but doesn't manage to start walking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if the fish swam out of the ocean

**Author's Note:**

> Hahaha, so turns out there's more. Sob.
> 
> Which is to say, I ran out of fluff to read, so I wrote some.
> 
> Edit: FFF, forgot to mention that the title is taken from the first line of the song "Black and Gold" by Sam Sparro.

“This is a bad idea,” Erik grunts, only just winning his wrestle with the handlebars of his wheelbarrow. ‘Negotiating’ the uneven ground has long since turned into ‘ploughing through by sheer force and determination, and hoping to high heaven that the momentum will carry them through before everything goes pear-shaped’.

“Nonsense, Erik!” Charles says jovially, despite the rather alarming way the wheelbarrow is starting to tilt from side to side, causing its occupant to junket about inside it. Saltwater slops over the sides in alarming quantities, and any sane person in his position ( _Not_ , Erik thinks, _that any sane person would_ be _in this position in the first place._ In fact, Erik doesn’t know how _he_ ended up in this position, except that he does, and the reason is sitting in his wheelbarrow, craning his head to get a good look at the _grass_ ) would be hanging on for dear life, but Charles’ hands, Erik notices, are barely keeping a loose grip on the edge. Instead, Charles, looking around at Erik’s fields and beaming at everything he sees, looks like he’s having the time of his life.

 _Knowing Charles_ , Erik thinks resignedly as Charles points and exclaims excitedly at a flower and then a burrow and then a mud puddle, _he probably is_. _G-d_.

Later, Erik isn’t sure if a loose stone under the wheelbarrow turned, or if the constant struggle against the jolting wheelbarrow had finally taken its toll on Erik’s arms, or if Charles himself leaned too far out in his eagerness to see more (deep down inside himself, in moments where he’s feeling painfully honest, Erik might admit that it is _possible_ he was distracted by the delighted flush on Charles’ cheeks, but never more than that). Regardless of the cause (or how becoming Charles looked with his cheeks tinged pink), the end result is that one moment the wheelbarrow is rolling along, Charles with it, and in the next, it has overturned, spilling Charles onto the ground in a great gush of water.

“Charles!” Erik cries, scrambling around the capsized barrow to where Charles is lying, tail flapping uselessly against the ground.

“Charles,” Erik says again, sliding down onto his knees beside Charles and pulling Charles’ torso onto his lap, “are you – ”

–just as the last of the water runs onto the ground and Charles _changes_ , scales melting away into skin and tail splitting neatly down the middle into two perfectly-formed –

“Huh,” Charles says, looking down at his new appendages. He wiggles a toe experimentally. “That didn’t hurt at all.”

Completely dumbstruck, Erik continues to stare.

“Emma always told me that it was positively _excruciating_ – I wonder where she got that idea?”

Coming back to himself, Erik realises just precisely which part of Charles he’s been staring at, and looks away so quickly he thinks he’s probably injured something. Thank G-d Charles hadn’t noticed.

“– actually, I’m fairly certain Emma has experienced the change firsthand; I never would’ve believed her, otherwise, so why on earth would she have told me that – ”

Occupied with trying to keep Charles from noticing his bright red face and simultaneously trying to forget and _remember forever_ the image of Charles’- Charles’ _\- the afterimage that is_ burnt into the back of his eyelids, Erik hasn’t been able to regain control of his vocal chords. But even though he cannot share them, he has more than a few ideas of why Emma might’ve told Charles that.

 “If I’d known, I would’ve done this _years ago –”_

–And that there would cover most of them.

“Why, Erik, this is marvellous!” Charles exclaims, and Erik may not know what Charles means by “this”, but he does know Charles, and so he’s fairly sure it will not, in fact, be marvellous. What’s worse is, that however not-marvellous, Erik has a sinking feeling that he’s going to let himself be pulled along into it anyway.

Charles’ eyes are shining with excitement as they look into Erik’s. He hasn’t even said anything yet, but already Erik can feel reason slipping away.

“Now we can just walk to your house!”

“Er, Charles,” Erik begins, as Charles shakily tries to pull himself to his feet.

“You don’t mind, do you, my friend?” Charles asks, already putting his hands on Erik’s shoulders. “It’s just that I think I might need a little boost –”

Finding himself automatically helping Charles to his feet, and then steadying him as he wobbles around crazily once he’s there, Erik thinks to himself resignedly that he doesn’t know why he bothers fighting it anymore.

He hovers protectively as Charles takes one shaky step, and then another and feels supremely justified when Charles then promptly falls into his arms.

“Really, Charles,” Erik says admonishingly, though he’s unable to keep the fondness out of his voice. “Did you really think you’d be able to walk straight away when you’ve never used these muscles before in your life?”

“I suppose not,” Charles says ruefully into Erik’s shoulder. “But it was a perfectly reasonable assumption – ”

“No, it wasn’t,” Erik says. “It really, really wasn’t.”

“I mean,” Charles continues, “it was only to be expected, what with all the –”

“Don’t say it!” Erik interrupts, seeing what was coming only too late –

“– _magic_ and all,” Charles says, eyes twinkling wickedly.

“Augh,” Erik says in frustration, because even now, it _still_ rankles that, given Charles’ experiences and his _very existence_ , that is actually a reasonable argument. And because of that, he has to accept it. He _hates_ that.

(Charles, obviously, loves it.)

“Well,” Charles says, breaking into Erik’s cloud of rational indignation, “What now, then? Seeing as we can’t get to your house by either wheelbarrow or on foot, I suppose a change of plan is in order.”

He sounds wistful.

Erik hates himself a little that allowing Charles to be disappointed was never even an option.

“Erik, what –” Charles begins, as Erik slides one arm behind his legs and _lifts_.

“Oh!” Charles exclaims, pink with surprised pleasure, arms reflexively circling Erik’s neck and tightening slightly as Erik starts on the path toward home.

And despite his reservations about his utter lack of willpower when it comes to Charles, when he’s nestled comfortably in Erik’s arms and marvelling at the landscape again, Erik finds he can’t help but feel at peace with the world.

This lasts for about five minutes, before he realises that he’s walking across his property, towards his house, with a _naked man in his arms_.

(The rest of the trek is spent in a paranoid haze, dreaming up plan after wild plan of what to do if anyone sees them, and coming, despairingly, to the inevitable conclusion that there is absolutely nothing Erik can do to make this look anything less than completely terrible.)

 

 

“What would you like to drink, Charles?” Erik asks, opening a kitchen cupboard and peering inside. Receiving no answer, he re-enters the sitting room –

–to find Charles peering intently at his own naked crotch.

 “What,” Erik can’t stop himself from saying.

“I was too busy looking at the landscape earlier,” Charles says, poking and prodding at his – _augh_. Erik finds suddenly that nothing is more important to him than seeing whatever is out the window.

“But this is rather fascinating too, isn’t it?” Charles continues, oblivious.

Erik makes a strangled sound, somewhere between a whimper and (bizarrely) a choked-off snort. It occurs to him (too late, always too late) that this is a (now) man from a people who _don’t wear clothes_ and who therefore has _absolutely no concept_ of physical modesty and that the appropriate response to finding Charles examining himself would have been to back away silently and stay out of sight until Charles had discovered something new to be enamoured with. Oh, hindsight.

“I mean, it’s all so dangly, and wrinkly,” Charles says. “Why do you suppose it’s like that?”

Erik grunts, hoping desperately that this will somehow turn out to be both an acceptable answer and one that will start Charles onto a socially-acceptable topic of conversation.

Predictably, it doesn’t.

“Erik?”

Erik chances a glance out of the corner of his eye in Charles’ general direction.

“Do you see what I mean?” Charles asks, lifting his hand to give Erik a better vie–

And now, equally suddenly, Erik has discovered that the thing he wants to study most in the world is in fact his floor.

“Really, Erik, how can you answer my question?” Charles says exasperatedly. “You didn’t even look!”

“Of course I did,” Erik lies. “I absolutely saw what you meant, and I have no idea– “

“It’s deformed, isn’t it,” Charles says, looking down at his crotch sadly this time.

“What,” Erik bleats.

“That’s why you can’t bear to look at me,” Charles says knowingly. “I do thank you for taking such pains to be circumspect, but I really think it’s best that I know the truth.”

“That’s – what?! No!” Erik says, persuasively.

“You don’t have to be gentle with me about it,” Charles continues. “I’d already suspected when I first changed and you couldn’t bring yourself to look at me.”

 _Oh G-d,_ Erik thinks. _He noticed._

“Does it look terribly bad?” Charles asks anxiously.

“It’s not deformed!” Erik shouts. This is quite possibly the most painful conversation he’s ever had to have. “You look like any normal human man!”

“...You mean every man has something that looks like this?” Charles asks suspiciously.

“Yes!” Erik cries.

“Even _you_?”

“Yes, even me!”

Charles looks down at his lap and then gives Erik a doubtful look.

Erik is not sure whether he should be offended or not.

“I don’t believe you,” Charles says, finally.

“It’s true!” Erik insists, and no one is more surprised than him that it is now _he_ who is prolonging this conversation.

There is a silence as Charles seems to consider Erik’s claims.

“Show me,” he says, finally.

“ _WHAT_?” Erik splutters.   

“Show me yours, so I can see for myself if it’s the same as mine or not,” Charles explains patiently.

“What? NO!”

“So mine _is_ deformed,” Charles says triumphantly. “Or else you wouldn’t be afraid to show yours to me!”

 _Oh G-d_ , Erik thinks. _Why._


End file.
